Saskatoon's Rylan Kleiter wrapped up a very successful season with a win against a stacked field at the Speedy Creek Shoot-Out in Swift Current.
Kleiter beat the Jordon McDonald rink out of Winnipeg 8-3 in the final.
"It was great," Kleiter said. "We had to battle through a few of our games. A great field with lots of teams going to men's Worlds (in Moose Jaw) here in a week. It was a fun event."
Kleiter started the day with a 10-3 win over the Steve Laycock rink out of Swift Current in the quarterfinal.
They then scored three in the final end to upend Jacob Lubbus 7-6 in the semifinal.
"I think for us it was facing adversity and being able to battle back," Kleiter said. "We had a few tough ends or tough shots that didn't go our way, and we were able to fight back and make the next one."
Kleiter's only loss at the event was against China's Xiao Ming Xu. His rink had a strong season which included a Saskatchewan championship and appearance at the Montanna's Brier.
"It's been a long three weeks," Kleiter said. "We went to the Brier, to Martensville and now here. I'm just proud of the guys for getting ourselves ready and up for this event to perform well."
The $25,000 event was another successful one for the Swift Current Curling Club after the Western Showdown earlier this season.
"The weekend went real well," Curling Club GM Chris Haichert. "It's such a treat for us to play host to all these teams from around the world. It's not every day you get to see the top national teams from Czechia, the Netherlands, Koreans, Japanese, China, Sweden... a real treat to be able to bring all these top talents here to play the top Canadian teams at the Swift Current Curling Club."
Haichert also played second for the Laycock rink who went 3-2 in the round robin before their loss to Kleiter.
The BKT World Men’s Curling Championship 2025 starts on Saturday in Moose Jaw.